Certain embodiments relate to the field of monitoring systems and devices. Certain aspects are directed to authentication of a scene by insertion of authentication information into the video signal and subsequent verification of the inserted information.
Video surveillance systems play an important role in many different areas such as crime prevention, business management, and traffic monitoring. Surveillance systems can be found almost everywhere such as banks, casinos, airports, military installations, and stores. Due to better resolution and output quality, there is a growing trend of replacing analog cameras by digital cameras in the surveillance field. In a digital video surveillance system, network- or IP-based cameras are used instead of traditional analog cameras, which capture images and convert to digital formats right away and transmit the video data to a network-based video recorder (NVR) or video viewing station over a network, typically over Ethernet under IP protocol.
Although these network- or IP-based surveillance systems are gaining popularity, there are some shortcomings. One issue concerns security. Because video data from the IP-based cameras is sent over a shared network, hackers can access the cameras by connecting to the shared network and acquire the sensitive video data, or replace video images sent from the camera to the NVR or viewing station. One possible scenario is where a hacker replaces video images sent from the camera to the NVR or viewing station, which is generally known as “spoofing.” Other scenarios include the covert viewing of the video stream, or “snooping.”
Therefore, there is a need to devise more secure video surveillance systems.